World Table Tennis Championships 2023: India's campaign ends; Manika, Sharath-Sathiyan all bow out

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World Table Tennis Championships: India's campaign in the World Table Tennis Championships 2023 ended with star paddler Manika Batra's defeat in the round of 32 in Durban on Wednesday (May 24).

Senior male paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran also failed to go past round of 64 in the men's singles round. In their respective round of 64 matches, Sharath Kamal lost to Lee Sang Su of the Republic of Korea 4-0 and G Sathiyan was defeated by Dang Qiu of Germany 4-0.

Batra fought hard before going down to Adriana Diaz of Puerto Rico 3-4 in the women's singles round of 32. Up against Diaz, ranked 13th in the ITTF chart, world number 39 Manika took the first game before her opponent stepped on the pedal.

It was a fairly balanced tie till the sixth game with both the players locked at 3-3. But Diaz ran away with the decider as Manika lost 3-4 (6-11, 12-10, 11-9, 6-11, 13-11, 9-11, 11-3) to book her place in the last 16. Even though she lost, Manika managed to ensure the best result for India in the singles competition.

Meanwhile, Sharath and Sathiyan also lost to the English pair of Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford 3-1 (11-9, 8-11, 12-14, 10-12) to crash out in the round of 16 of the men's doubles event.

The Indian combination had defeated the same English duo en route to a gold medal in last year's Birmingham Commonwealth Games. The women's doubles pair of Manika and Archana Kamath also lost in straight games 0-3 (8-11, 6-11, 7-11) to Japan's Hina Hayata and Mima Ito in the round of 16 to make an exit from the tournament. India drew a blank in the tournament.

(With PTI Inputs)